The White Stuff Page 18

  ‘Still shiny and dean,’ she said.

  He was astonished she had remembered, and lifted the watch up so she could see it more dearly. ‘Sapphire glass. It won’t ever scratch,’ he said.

  She shook her head. Either she was marvelling at the glass face and the science that kept it so polished and dear, or she had already forgotten why she was examining this expensive timepiece with its golden hands and brilliant white dial.

  ‘It’s Felix, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  She looked away from him, towards the picture of the buttercup meadow on the far wall, and shook her head again.

  Outside in the car, he unfastened the clasp of the watch and hung it over the outstretched fingers of his right hand, the way a jeweller might present such a watch to a customer. Bringing the face dose to his eye and angling it towards the light, he could see the sheen of the glass. There wasn’t a mark on it. He flipped it over and traced the message engraved in neat, curvy writing on the back of the case. ‘To Felix on his eighteenth. All my love. Mum.’ Then he drove home.

  Men may be forgetful and sloppy and not as tidy as they should, but they have a knack of hanging on to things and holding them safe. That’s not so difficult with something like a watch, which is basically a handcuff that tells the time. But even with small, apparently insignificant objects, men have a way of keeping them in their life for years, against all the odds. One night in the park with Jed and Smutty, after an argument with Marine, Jed asked Felix which of his possessions he valued the most. Under normal circumstances, Jed wouldn’t go anywhere near this kind of conversation, but sat on top of a slide in the early hours of the morning after a gallon of beer, his mind turned to matters of a philosophical nature. Felix talked about his wedding ring, and about his watch, which was all the more special since his mother had gone into the nursing home, and how the writing on the back was important because it said something his mother was no longer capable of speaking.

  ‘But you wear the ring and the watch all the time. What if the house was on fire? What would you go in and get?’

  ‘I don’t know. Photographs?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s a good answer. That’s a woman’s answer.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That’s the kind of thing you’d say if Abbie asked you. But she’s not here, so what would you really get?’

  ‘My wallet,’ he answered.

  ‘Exactly. Your wallet. The floppy disks. The train set in the attic. That’s what you’d go for.’

  ‘And what about you? Would you get the twins or would that be too girly?’

  Jed scratched his chin for a moment. ‘Fair enough. Checkmate.’

  Smutty was pawing at a mole hill over by the privet hedge. It was a cloudless night and Jed was staring into the sky in the direction of the Plough. After a while there was something he wanted to say. ‘You got that watch for your eighteenth, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When I was eighteen, mi mum and dad gave me this electric shaver. I only had a bum-fluff moustache but it was a good pressie ’cos it was all about becoming a man. Must have cost ’em a fair whack. Came in a case with a mirror on the inside and space for the flex. Dead neat. Still using it. And it had this little brush with it, right, just a tiny black brush for dusting the bristles off the foil and cleaning the gunk out of the head. There was a little slot in the case for this brush. I had it eleven years and never lost it. Always put it back in the slot. All those mornings when I was late for work, or still pissed from the night before, or hungover, or on holiday with mi mates, and it was still there. Then two days after we got married, I looks in the case and it was gone. And I says to Max, “Hey, have you seen a little black brush anywhere?” And she says, “If it was that manly little thing I found on the side of the sink, I’ve thrown it out I thought it was rubbish.” And I told her what it was, and she said, “They’re twenty-five pence in Boots, go and get another.” He stopped to light a cigarette. Then he said, ‘Do you see what I mean?’

  ‘Was it a Braun?’ asked Felix.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘With the green felt on the inside of the case?’

  ‘That’s the bunny. Don’t tell me you’ve got one too?’ Felix nodded.

  ‘But have you got the little brush? You haven’t, have you? Have you?’

  Another thing that Felix had kept safe and sound for many years was the miniature treasure chest Abbie had given him not long after they had started going out. She called it a ‘love gift’ – he can still remember her saying the words - and it was no bigger than a matchbox with a press-stud clasp on the front in the shape of a padlock. When he opened it with his thumb, he found seven or eight of her hairs, twisted together to make one length of braid, tied in a ball. Where the hairs were tightly bound their blackness seemed stronger, more intense, as if pulling them into a knot had wrung a deeper, darker shade from the strands. They were sitting in the snug room of the pub, in one of the booths. He’d kissed her, then she’d whispered in his ear that in Italy lovers give each other gifts of their hair, but not the hairs from their head. He could feel the redness in her cheek, next to his. She said, ‘I was too embarrassed, though. I didn’t know what you’d think.’ He can’t remember what his answer was, but a few days later there was another little treasure chest waiting for him. With more hairs in it. Hairs not from her head. He had kept both boxes, along with all the letters she sent him and other mementoes of their first few years together.

  Abbie hadn’t changed much to look at. Not in Felix’s eyes. But as they sat in the waiting area of the clinic, she let a thick shank of her hair fall in front of her eyes and, by sifting it through her hands, teased out several long, grey strands. With her fingers she followed each one back to its root somewhere in the top of her scalp, then tugged it out and presented it to Felix. Each hair was at least eight inches long, black at the tip but undeniably grey at the other end, even white or silver. They were presented to Felix one at a time. He duly examined them and nodded.

  ‘I’m not the only one,’ she said, touching several places on his head just above his ears. He nodded again.

  Their appointment had been for twenty past three but it was half past four by the time they were asked to go in. Dr Tremlett, the consultant, was not in his office, and they waited another ten minutes before he swept through the door, snapping off a pair of transparent latex gloves and tossing them into the bin under the sink.

  ‘Sorry about that. Minor crisis. Tremlett called in to save the day, as per.’

  In combination with the sunshine from the window, his blond hair, gold-rimmed glasses, ginger eyebrows and tanned face created a peculiar effect, as if his head were emitting an aura of yellow light. He flipped open the case file on his desk and read quickly through the notes, nodding in agreement or frowning in sympathy.

  ‘So it’s Felix and Abbie, yes? And you were referred to me in April.’

  ‘March,’ said Abbie.

  He looked back at the file. ‘March it was. Apologies. And you’ve been waiting for the results of the biopsy following a D&C following a… Was that your first miscarriage?’

  ‘Third,’ said Abbie.

  He looked at the notes again, turning back a couple of pages. ‘Your third. That’s correct. Hence your concerns and your request for the biopsy. And a chromosome test as well.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He scanned the last two pages of the notes, nodding and frowning again, and at one point pulling his face as if in pain. Then he closed the file and took off his glasses.

  ‘Afraid to say there’s been a bit of a cock-up.’

  ‘In what way?’ asked Felix.

  ‘Seems like the foetal matter taken away for analysis became contaminated. Broken seal most likely, so the lab weren’t able to carry out the tests. Seems you’ve had a bit of a wasted journey.’

  Felix turned to look at Abbie. There was a terrible sense of resignation in her face. She was appalled, yes, and disgusted
, sure, but more than that she was exhausted and defeated and without hope. She was blank and pale. She had lost.

  ‘So we’ll never know what caused it?’ said Felix. He was trying to talk for Abbie. He wanted to prove to her that he was on her side, that he wouldn’t let her down.

  ‘You know, we could have run a thousand tests and not come up with any answers. Chances are, it was just one of those things,’ asserted the doctor.

  ‘I see,’ said Felix. He had meant it to sound challenging. Sarcastic, even. As if he didn’t accept what he had been told and would be taking the matter further. But it sounded lame, as if he’d said, ‘I understand,’ or, ‘Oh well, not to worry.’

  ‘While you’re here, I should mention this other thing. Have you read about it in the paper?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Had some trouble with the locals. Didn’t want any bio-matter incinerated. Said they were breathing in the smoke. Moral and religious grounds, that sort of thing. Possible lawsuit, but it’s all blown over now. To coin a phrase. Been settled, I should say. So, question is, what do you want doing with the remains?’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘We can get rid of them now, or if you’d rather have them back for a burial… Totally up to you. I’ll just pop out while you talk it through. Back in a mo.’

  He jumped up from the desk and went out of a side door, through which he could be heard chatting with two of the nurses.

  Abbie still wore the same expression.

  ‘So it… the baby… has been lying around in a lab for eight months. Is that what he means?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. A semicircle of clear liquid began to form in the bottom half of each eye.

  ‘Did you know?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘What shall we do?’

  Unexpectedly, Abbie stood up and folded her coat over her arm. ‘You decide,’ she said, and went out into the waiting area, dosing the door behind her.

  After three or four minutes Dr Tremlett came back and took his .place behind his desk.

  ‘Has she…’ he inquired, gesturing towards the seat where Abbie had been sitting.

  ‘She’s very upset,’ said Felix.

  ‘Understandable. Understandable. So what’s it to be, then?’ He drew a silver fountain pen out of his top pocket, unscrewed the lid and held it above an empty box on one of the forms in front of him, waiting for Felix’s answer.

  They hadn’t asked permission, just in case they were refused, and Abbie didn’t want a vicar involved. It was too complicated to explain. Although the vase had fallen over, the bunch of lilies they had left on their last visit were still on the grave, the heads brown and perished and the stalks wizened and hard. There was also a single red rose thrown on to the green stone chippings, with a card attached. It read, ‘From B.’

  ‘Just like last time,’ said Felix.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘A gift tag with this message on.’

  ‘Maybe it’s the same one.’

  ‘But this is tied to a flower.’

  Abbie shrugged. With the trowel he had brought, Felix scraped away some of the loose stones, then dug into the earth in the middle of the grave. He had always assumed that graves were solid and covered over with a stone slab. Maybe the better ones were. But the grave of Maria Rosales was just a headstone, bordered by three sides of stone edging. When the hole was deep enough, Abbie took the small pine box from under her coat. Kneeling in the dirt, she placed it in the centre of the hole, then took off her gloves to scrape a few handfuls of soil over the lid. She stood up and Felix levelled the grave with the trowel and scattered the green chippings back on top. The grave looked disturbed but not desecrated or spoiled. A few days of weather would heal the wound. There was a chill in the air and for the first time that year Felix noticed his breath steaming in front of his face. It was also the first time he had done any physical exercise in a long while. Abbie dusted the dirt from her knees.

  ‘They won’t be on their own now. They’ll be company for each other.’

  Felix nodded in agreement. He tapped the trowel gently against the headstone to dean it.

  Abbie said, ‘My mother and my child, and I didn’t know either of them.’

  The Godfather

  Children who are baptized are brought up in the Christian faith. Jesus tells us that unless a person has been born again, he or she cannot see the Kingdom of God, and baptism is the sign and seal of this new birth. Furthermore, under section seven of its rules and regulations, it is clearly stated that only those children who are baptized will be offered a place at Mount Rose Church of England Junior School, with its impressive Ofsted report, consistently high examination results and distinctive green and mauve uniform. Pupils educated outside the Church of England will take their chances in the failing junior school on the other side of town, with its reputation for truancy, bullying and even drugs.

  The priest will ask if the parents and godparents are willing to give the children the help and encouragement they need through prayers, through example and through teaching. They wiR mumble that they are witting.

  ‘Alice and Molly, when you are baptized, you become members of a new family. God takes you for his own children, and all Christian people will be your brothers and sisters.’

  Priest: The Lord is loving to everyone.

  All: And his mercy is over all his works.

  The parents stand. Maxine appears more tiny than usual alongside her very tall husband, who has raised himself to his full height in the presence of God. The godparents also stand. Two couples. To the left of the font, Auntie Lynn and Uncle Graham from Colchester. To the right, Felix and Abbie. Felix in a cottar and tie. Abbie in tears. The twins rustle and shine in their homemade satin dresses. Sunlight enters the nave through a spectrum of stained glass, making the jewels of their plastic tiaras sparkle and glow.

  ‘It is your duty to bring up these children to fight against evil and to follow Christ. Therefore I ask these questions which you must answer for yourself and for these children. Do you turn to Christ?’

  Maxine and Jed turn to Christ, holding hands as they do so. The Colchester branch of the family affirm in unison, though due to an unfortunate speech impediment it is Chwist that Uncle Graham turns to, and in an Essex accent. Abbie, swallowing back her tears, is unable to speak, but Felix turns to Christ on behalf of himself and his wife.

  ‘Do you repent of your sins?’

  They repent.

  ‘Do you renounce evil?’

  They renounce.

  Having wepented and wenounced, Uncle Graham extrudes an apparently endless handkerchief from his breast pocket and blows his nose, the comedy-style trumpeting of his nasal passages echoing through the church. Felix makes a quick dash to the tripod positioned several feet away and checks the auto-focus on the camcorder and replaces the battery. Auntie Lynn steps forward with an offering of oil. The priest unscrews the small green and black jar, labelled Body Shop, and dips his index finger into the liquefied extract of coconut and aloe vera, specially blessed for the occasion. Turning to the twins, he smears the sign of the cross on the forehead of the smiling Molly, recharges his finger in the pot, then smears the same shape on the forehead of the giggling Alice. A bead of oil runs between her eyebrows, which she follows with her inturned eyes until it comes to rest at the end of her nose. Maxine offers a tissue, but Alice pushes it away, waiting for the moment when the trembling drop of oil has enough critical mass to detach itself and fall. The priest implores everyone not to be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and a long response about fighting valiantly under the banner of Christ peters out before the last bit about soldiers and servants. A hymn is sung. Then the lid of the enormous font is raised by means of a hand-crank attached to a series of pulleys and ropes suspended from the ceiling. The priest demands to know if the parents and godparents believe in God the Father, who made the world, and Jesus Christ, who redeemed mankind, and the Holy Spirit, who gives
life to the people of God.

  They do.

  The priest reaches backwards into the font and scoops out a handful of dripping water.

  ‘Alice, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’

  ‘I’am Molly.’

  ‘I beg your pardon. Molly, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ He lets the water dribble from his fingers on to her head.

  Molly closes her eyes as it runs down her cheeks and on to her chin. ‘Amen?’ she asks.

  The priest fishes behind him in the font again and scoops water on to Alice.

  It runs behind her ears and she shrieks as the icy liquid trickles down her neck and between her shoulders.

  ‘Shhh,’ says Jed.

  ‘But it’s freezing.’

  Candles are handed out to parents and godparents. One per hand. Twelve in all Jed tucks one of his candles behind his ear as he passes among the small circle of adults with his fag lighter. The buds of flame are barely visible in the strong sunlight projected through the coloured glass above them. The priest welcomes the twins into God’s Church. The enthusiasm of the congregation is flagging, until the commencement of the Lord’s Prayer. The priest says it his way. The new way. The six adults who never go to church say it their way. The right way. Then the baptism comes to an end.

  ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us evermore. Amen.’

  ‘Amen.’

  At the door, in the large wooden porch, each member of the gathering files past the priest. The twins have run ahead to look for ghosts in the graveyard. Maxine and Jed are grateful that the service could be fitted in at such short notice and the priest hopes to see them again in the future. Lynn and Graham are wished a safe drive back to Colchester. It was a lovely service, says Lynn. Weally special, Graham agrees. Felix is next.